(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to non-fried oil-free instant cooking dry noodles, and more particularly it pertains to noodles of this type having elongated cord-like shape, which are free of stickiness and agglutination to each other, are easily releasably from entaglement during the manufacturing process, whose surfaces are smooth with no blister-like bubble formations thereon and which can be converted to satisfactory boiled condition in a very short period of time by immersion in hot water.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
One known method for manufacturing non-fried dry instant cooking noodles includes the steps of adding water to starch components, which consist mainly of wheat flour, uniformly distributing the added water throughout the starch components by kneading, subjecting the resulting mixture to rolling to provide a long web of raw starting material, then cutting this web with a wave-shaped cutter blade into individual, long cord-like raw noodles, thereafter subjecting these noodles to steaming to effect .alpha.-conversion of the starch components, and then drying the resulting noodles. Another known method comprises extruding such a mixture under pressure to provide a long web of raw starting material, and then subjecting this web to same steps as mentioned above. Still another known method directly extrudes the mixture through a die to provide individual elongated cord-like raw noodles and thereafter subjecting these noodles to the steps mentioned above.
These known methods have the disadvantages and inconveniences such that the elongated individual cord-like raw noodles so obtained are not of a straight form but they are wavy or crimped in configuration. In this form the noodles become swollen during the step of steaming, causing the individual noodles to stick to each other so that .alpha.-conversion of the starch components therein does not take place uniformly throughout the noodles. This in turn leads to the difficulty that the final dry product noodles can not be uniformly converted to the boiled or cooked state when immersed in hot water, thus failing to give such satisfactory feel, sense and taste as would be expected of cooked or boiled noodles. As for the noodles which are manufactured by extrusion of the dough into a web of starting material, and the dry noodles made by direct extrusion of the dough into individual cord-like noodles, both invariably experience the undesirable consequence that the mixture is subjected to excessive kneading during the extrusion process. As a consequence the texture of the raw material is rendered excessively dense, lowering the ability of the dry noodles to be satisfactory transformed to the cooked or boiled state when immersed in hot water for a short period of time. Further, the sense, feel and taste, including what is called "al dente," noted at the time these noodles are eaten become very poor. As used in the following description we include, for evaluation of the cooked noodles, the "al dente" state.
One procedure that has been proposed to improve these disadvantages and inconveniences includes mixing starch components which consist mainly of wheat flour with an emulsion of an oil-in-water phase edible oil, subjecting the resulting raw mixture to steaming, and thereafter drying the product. The individual pieces of war noodles produced according to this known method are such that said edible oil is scattered non-uniformly on the surfaces of the individual noodles, and accordingly it is not possible to completely eliminate the mutual sticking between individual cord-like noodles which takes place during the step of steaming. This means that an additional step of releasing the mutually contacting noodles apart from each other is required. Moreover, when the dry noodles are subjected to cooking by immersion in hot water, a sense and feel of wheat flour still remains when eaten. This is caused by the inevitable non-uniform .alpha.-conversion during the manufacturing process due to the application of oil-in-water emulsion before steaming, and also caused by insufficient ability for being rendered to the boiled or cooked state within a short period of time. These facts lead to lowering of the sense, feel and taste when the cooked noodles are eaten, which represent lowering of the value as dry noodles which requires improvement.
As a means of solving such problems U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,906 describes a method for manufacturing non-fried dry instant cooking noodles which includes the application of an aqueous emulsion of an edible oil to the surfaces of shaped elongated raw pieces of noodles, and then subjecting these noodles to steaming to prevent mutual sticking of the individual noodles and to accelerate .alpha.-conversion of the starch-containing components during a short period of time. Next the moisture contained in the noodles is removed by dehydrating and evaporation in a drying step to expand the surfaces of the noodles to make these surfaces porous and to produce very fine pores communicating with the inner portions or texture of the noodles. The resulting dry noodles can be converted to the boiled or cooked state in a short period of time, and the cooked noodles give satisfactory sense, feel and taste when eaten. This procedure reduces the number of individual noodles sticking to each other. Since, however, an aqueous emulsion of edible oil is applied to the surfaces of the shaped noodles during the course of their manufacture, degradation of the quality of the dry noodles over a period of time cannot be avoided, however, the speed of degradation of noodle quality is improved as compared with that of fried dry noodles.
An additional factor to be considered is that noodle products containing oil cannot be labeled as noodles according to U.S. food labeling requirements, but are commonly termed "oriental noodles" or "oriental-style noodles" in the trade. As such, there has been a demand for the development of technique which satisfies this requirement of long stable durability of quality of the product, resisting a long period of storage.
We have undertaken various studies and many experiments to resolve the foregoing problems encountered in the prior art, and as a result we have discovered and hereby disclose the present invention based on the discovery that, by first forming a mixture of grain flour consisting mainly of wheat flour and water, then rolling this mixture material into a long web of an appropriate thickness containing from 25% to 45% by weight of water, or by forming this mixture and subjecting the same to extrusion under pressure to provide a web of raw noodle material also having from 25% to 45% by weight of water content, thereafter either subjecting the web directly to steaming for .alpha.-conversion of the starch-containing components or first applying water to the surfaces of the raw web and then steaming the result web for .alpha.-conversion, followed by preliminarily drying the web to regulate the water content to 15-35% by weight, then cutting the web into shaped individual noodles, and lastly drying the final product an improved noodle is produced.
Using such a procedure by steaming the dough in the form of a web rather than slit stands no sticking of the noodles material as encountered. This means that .alpha.-conversion can progress uniformly throughout the web and blister-like formations on the surfaces of the web are not developed. After said steaming step the web is subjected to a preliminary drying, so that the web can be cut into individual pieces of noodle without the annoyance of sticking to the cutter blade and without requiring the troublesome step of releasing the entangled pieces of noodles as has been required in the prior art. Our dry noodle product has a uniform width or size and the thus-shaped noodles, when subjected to further drying, produces a rather porous texture which is peculiar to dry noodles intended for instant cooking. These noodles can be quickly rendered to the edible cooked or boiled state by immersion in hot water during a short period of time, giving such satisfactory sense, taste and feel as expected of cooked noodles, and have an outstanding storage stability for an extended length of time.
Briefly stated, to make the noodles of our invention a web of raw noodle material, which contains from 25% to 45% by weight of water, is steamed, preliminarily dried to reduce the water content of the web to 15-35% by weight, and then cut into the desired noodle shape, and dried. Optionally water may be applied to the web prior to steaming depending upon the final product desired.
Our procedure does not require the use of an edible oil applied to the noodle surface, thus many of the difficulties that may be encountered with the procedure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,906 can be avoided. Moreover, the product of our invention is oil-free and thus may be properly marketed as a noodle in the United States. Omission of the edible oil to the surfaces of raw noodles eliminates the cause for quality degradation with time; the products of our invention are oil-free and fully storage stable.